"She is going away for ever ... for ever! Naturally she does not like to say to me: Good-bye, you will never see me again! So she says: I should like to travel a little; I need a change; I will go to the lake for a few weeks; I should like to bathe; I need a change of air! Naturally she does not say to me: I can endure it no longer; I am young and in my prime and healthy; you are paralysed and will soon die; I have a horror of your affliction and of the loathsome state that must supervene before it is at an end. So she says: I will go away only for a few weeks, then I will come back again and stay with you." Bertha's painful agitation became merged in her embarrassment. "You are certainly mistaken," was all that she could answer. Rupius hastily drew up the rug, which was on the point of slipping down off his knees. He seemed to find it chilly. As he continued to speak, he drew the rug higher and higher, until finally he held it with both hands pressed against her breast. "I have seen it coming; for years I have seen this moment coming. Imagine what sort of an existence it has been; waiting for such a moment, defenceless and forced to be silent!--Why are you looking at me like that?" "Oh, no," said Bertha, looking down at the market square. "Well, I beg your pardon for referring to all this. I had no intention of doing so, but when I saw you walking past--well, thank you very much for having listened to me." "Please don't mention it," said Bertha, mechanically stretching out her hand to him. He did not notice it, however, and she let it lie upon the table. "Now it is all over," said Herr Rupius; "now comes the time of loneliness, the time of dread." "But has your wife ... she loves you, I'm sure of it!... I am quite certain that you are giving yourself needless anxiety. Wouldn't the simplest course be, Herr Rupius, for you to request your wife to forego this journey?" "Request?..." said Herr Rupius, almost majestically. "Can I pretend to have the right to do so? AH these last six or seven years have only been a favour which she has granted me. I beg you, consider it. During all these seven years not a word of complaint at the waste of her youth has passed her lips." "She loves you," said Bertha, decisively; "and that is the chief point." Herr Rupius looked at her for a long time. "I know what is in your mind, although you do not venture to say it. But your husband, my dear Frau Bertha, lies deep in the grave, and does not sleep by your side night after night." He looked up with a glance that seemed to ascend to Heaven as a curse. Time was getting on; Bertha thought of her train. "When is your wife going to start?" "Nothing has been said about that yet--but I am keeping you, perhaps?" "No, not at all, Herr Rupius, only.... Hasn't Anna told you? I'm going to Vienna to-day, you know." She grew burning red. Once more he gazed at her for a long time. It seemed to her as though he knew everything.